


Cleaning House

by MinervaFan



Series: Recreating the World in Her Image [1]
Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Aftermath, Gen, History, Mary's backstory, Readjustments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 15:52:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19023082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinervaFan/pseuds/MinervaFan
Summary: The unwanted guest in her home for the last few months was, in Mary's opinion at least, a complete slob.





	Cleaning House

**I Property**

The cottage and accompanying land has been in the Wardwell family for centuries. The first Mary Wardwell in her family tree was the eldest child of Samuel, who died by hanging on Gallows Hill in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692.

Mary traces her own line back to William Wardwell, fourth child and second son of that poor bastard who tried his damnedest to retract a forced confession to witchcraft only to be hanged anyway.

The family was left destitute, property confiscated and name ruined. A later suit to restore the family’s property was successful.  The family was awarded 36£, 10 shillings and sixpence for their suffering.

Needless to say, it has been a stipulation in every will since that the Greendale property, bought and worked and tended by the descendants of that poor foolish martyr would henceforth  _ only _ be passed down to the eldest heir bearing the Wardwell name.

Had she ever married Adam, Mary would most certainly have refused his last name. Any children of that union would have borne the Wardwell name.

Not that any of that had any bearing to her anymore.

 

**II Wardrobe**

The first thing to be addressed is clothing. 

The creature who assumed her life for all those months--it is no longer in question that her life has been co-opted for the better part of a year--left her with clothes that were completely inappropriate for her life and work.

When she returned, for certainly she had been gone, she wore the same fall outfit she’d worn that fateful night. It was uncomfortably hot for the beginning of summer, and she practically tore it from her body when she finally got back to the cottage. 

Hanger after hanger of clothes she would have been too shy to wear even in the wildest of her college days stared at her from the bedroom closet.

Her usurper clearly had no trouble showing flesh.

Eventually she found her own clothes in a cardboard box just inside the storage shed. Scrawled in red Sharpie, in a handwriting eerily similar to her own, was the word, “Incinerate.”

 

**III Kitchen**

When her mother died of cancer back in the 80s, her possessions had been shipped to the cottage--left vacant since the death of Grandmother Wardwell when Mary was only six. Two years afterward, fresh from receiving her Masters’ in Education, broke, and struggling under the weight of student loans, Mary had returned to her family home to accept a teaching position at Baxter High. 

When she found the box of her mother’s things, right on top was her mother’s favorite decoration from Mary’s childhood home. It was exquisitely embroidered, framed in a modest gold moulding, and read “Sorry, my PhD trumps your clean house!”

Her mother always kept it right over the stove, just to get a rise out of Grandmother Wardwell.

Mary sees it has slipped off the wall and is peeking out from behind the refrigerator. The glass is cracked, and will have to be replaced.

She cries for forty minutes before she can make it to the pantry to take stock for the grocery list.

 

**IV Bathroom**

Her knees are bruised from scrubbing the floor. The tiles are...coated with...she doesn’t know what. There is a box of black-light light bulbs left over from Halloween, but she doesn’t dare use them.

She does not want to see what might be revealed under that purple glow.

 

**V Hallway**

It was an old joke she’d shared with her mother. 

“Why on Earth did you give me such a Catholic name if you’re an atheist?”

Her mother would laugh and say, “Your grandmother always called you my miracle baby. I named you Mary Margaret just to get her off my back.”

The miracle was that she was the only child of a forty-one year old woman and her fifty-three year old husband. By all reasonable expectations, Mary Margaret Wardwell should never have been born.

She slips her hand into the clear plastic bag, using it as a makeshift glove. 

Grandmother’s crucifix is upside down.

She lifts it gingerly from the wall, pulling the plastic over it and closing the zipper as if it were toxic.

Later, she buries it in the woods just over the edge of the property line.

She does not leave a marker, as she never wants to see it again.

 

**V Living Room**

She knows enough not to bandy about the phrase OCD. Mary Wardwell does not have that tragic condition. She simply likes order. She likes knowing there is a place for everything.

When she was a child, she would tidy her room each day, carefully placing her books and toys in their proper places, happily removing the dust before it could layer on any surface, reveling in the sense of order and peace she created through her own efforts.

Years of living alone had only reinforced that desire for order and tidiness.

Each chair out of place is an insult.

The book splayed open, face down on the end table, instead of closed properly with a bookmark, infuriates her.

That she does not remember reading or even buying that book is a question for another time.

Her unwanted housemate was, in effect, a slob.

A body-stealing, life-destroying, slutty-dressed slob.

She throws the book in the fresh ashes of the fireplace.

Who fucking uses a fireplace in June anyway?

 

**VI Yard**

She sees them coming through the front window.

The Spellman Sisters. Hilda and Zelda.

While her parents were buried in Riverdale, Mary has been to Spellman Mortuary many times. Small town funerals are a community affair, and a high school teacher sees too many comings and goings as the world crawls by without her.

Hilda, the younger one, is carrying a covered dish. The elder sister Zelda looks like nothing less than an image from a 40s noir film.

The knock on her door is firm, insistent.

She opens it with the standard apology. “I’m sorry, the place is a mess.”

“We thought you might like a nice casserole,” Hilda says as she steps into the immaculate living room.

“And some answers,” Zelda adds, closing the door behind her.

 

End


End file.
